Kingfishers at 12 oclock!

Well we’ve had some rain, days of steady stuff, some of which will have got down into the ground. Numerous intense showers have flooded the road and run quickly off into the river adding a flush of colour and a brief lift before quickly returning to its current default level. The weed cut has now ended and nothing came down from up river, we sent our cut-weed on down the river with a day to spare, and what normally takes half a day took a little longer due to the reduced flow.
Fishing has become quite tricky. Fish have been caught, including several around the three pound mark but it has taken a lot of effort. Some who have camped on a midwater fish for an hour, have toured their fly box and been rewarded for their travels/travails.
There are few free-risers bar a brace of errant Rainbows, although many undersize fish have been spotting the surface on the shallows. Today an angler had his hook straightened on the middle bends by a fish he thought was around six pounds. There is a fish on that stretch that has been hooked and lost for the last three seasons, but it is considerably bigger than six pounds. Whichever fish it was, it will be another dark sulky lump on the bed of the river for the coming months.

The Millstream that was formed by man hundreds of years ago to turn the wheel at the Mill, is now a pond. As the river drops, water is diverted from the millstream to maintain the flow on the main channel; in times of flood, the mill stream carries extra water away from the main channel to prevent excessive flooding. In it’s current benign state, it is almost unfishable, bar the bit in front of the house and the top twenty yards where it first forms. Currently it is home to a huge shoal of Minnows. Mum and Dad must have thought it a good place to spawn when the water was flowing, but now the water is gone, things look bleak for their babies, Kingfishers congregate and war has broken out between a pair at the top of this stretch and a rival pair just below our bottom boundary. Both pairs appear to be feeding young, and continually chase the other pair up and down the narrow channel. One day this week, while making my stately passage through the ford with the trailer on the back, they passed, shrieking at low level, between trailer and vehicle. A walk along the road with the wobbly dog is often accompanied by the whine of Kingfishers dog-fighting over a plate of minnows; a plate of minnows that may not have been as accessible had the river not been managed by man.

The student from Sparsholt has returned north. A useful and entertaining addition for three weeks he should go far in the Fishery Management field, although the canny Carp in the pond defeated him. He did hook a couple fishing on the surface but both fish were lost. The few that remain are around fifty years old, double figures and pretty cute. The Perch, Roach and Rudd proved to be more obliging along with Brian the brainless Bream who, at this week's weigh in, clocked four pound. A few Tench have put in a an appearance around the Lillies and I hope to have a go myself sometime soon.

I was invited to fish a stretch of the Kennet by a friend who provides one of the premier country-store retail experiences in the area. Beer and an excellent lunch were taken and an enjoyable afternoon followed on plenty of water in Berkshire. The keeper was worried about water levels (obviously) but the fishing was good, with fish taking Olives from mid afternoon on. I had several fish on a Klinkhammer before thunder and lightning (not the fly) hove into view and I exited stage left. I have yet to fish the Kennet and not catch a trout, even when fishing for Barbeland Chub. A pretty and productive river it needs to be looked after, this stretch is obviously in good hands.

Just a bit off the fringe, and no gel!

Well we had some rain, a whole day of it, and a few showers to follow on, but I had cause to dig up some potatoes one day this week and the soil was like dust ten inches down and the potatoes the size of peas. No matter who you talk to up and down the river, the conversation inevitably turns to the lack of water. The current wet week does nothing for the aquifers, if it doesn’t rain from November to March the rivers that run through chalk are stuffed. With the June weed cut upon us, I had a quick scout up the valley to see what weed was likely to come our way, not much to speak of but the river at Western Colley, a mile and a bit below the point at which the river normally puts in an appearance was a foot below the measuring station and not far drying up. We are informed that the aquifers are marginally below average levels. A mile above Western Colley lie ponds that have been in regular use for Salmonid production, bar this year, they have they been unusable only once in recent memory due to lack of water and then towards the end of the Summer; we have a long way to go this season and the river will only get lower from here on.
I could go on, but my wife says I am getting obsessed with the water issue to the extent that I admonish her for bringing a glass of the stuff to bed.

Fishing picked up towards the end of this week, with several fish looking to the surface following a post mayfly nap to take medium Olives from midday through to mid evening, a few sedge are about along with the occasional Mayfly but most fish caught have been taken on Olive patterns or a Daddy Long Legs. We have cut some weed, the Ranunculus on the top shallows was of sufficient thickness to justify a bar cut along with some of the celery on the middle bit, the rest I will tittivate to a reasonable state of tidiness and leave to hold up the water, In Coiffure parlance, a trim of the fringe over a short back and sides. While we have blanket weed in the stew ponds there are no signs of it in the river, although this could change as the water temperature rises; the neighbouring “Big Fish” water has already recorded water temperatures above twenty degrees Celsius.

I am a week or two behind in topping the meadows. Diktat dictates that “thy meadow shalt remain unmowed until the first week of this month” For the mower’s absence, this year we have been rewarded with an even better display of Orchids than last year’s show. Numbers of phallic purple pretties must run into the hundreds, although the grass is a tad long, but I won’t mount the tractor until they have finished.

The home grown mixed sex brown trout fry are thriving on river water, although they draw the regular attention of a kingfisher with young to feed. There is a huge shoal of Grayling fry on the shallows by the ford and parts of the pond shimmer with Roach, Rudd and Perch fry. A brief trawl of the pond with a number one Mepps produced several Perch who will grow fat consuming silver fish fry in the coming months.

I don't believe it!

Today we have received a message from EA central, Airstrip One, Oceania. An old fashioned message sent with a stamp but containing a poster that we are to display in a prominent position and three hundred words of fishery management advice on signs of drought conditions, fish in distress and possible courses of action.
One of the principle signs of drought conditions according to the faceless “Inner Party” are ponds that are half full/empty and a sure sign of fish in distress is dead fish on the surface of the water.
Also in the envelope were two sides of doublespeak assuring the reader that aquifer levels were only marginally down on the seasonal averages and there really was very little to worry about.
Accuse me of “Facecrime” but I am incredulous at the claims made by the Government appointed agency. In “Oldspeak” It’s an absolute load of b******s The Aquifers in this part of the valley are the lowest I have seen in my twenty years on this stretch and I have not seen the spring ditches that feed this river rise such a short distance from the river. For the Environment Agency to peddle the lie to the general public that we have enough water in the ground for the coming summer is a disgrace. There are many others who hold this view and are concerned that the Governing body who could do something to protect the amount of water that we have in the ground are apparently blind to the problem.

Breathe, Breathe!

The Mayfly are still hatching but few fish show interest. After a couple of good weeks in which most fish gorged themselves, most are now sated. We have had some of the heaviest hatches for some years with plenty of Spinners getting back down on the water. The Yellow Sallies are hatching now, which is always an indication that Mayfly time is coming to a close. A few Blue Winged Olives have put in an appearance, and numbers of Sedge seem to be building a few weeks earlier than normal. Some big fish have been lost this week which means we will have a few sulky lumps in the deeper stretches throughout the Summer and several Grayling around the 2lb mark have also been caught.

Our gamecover was drilled several weeks ago, and after a shower of rain earlier in the week has put its nose above the soil, which has now returned to dust. In the water meadows we have another good show of Orchids with at least three different “pinky purple” types. Some of the weed in the river has now broken surface and it may be possible to hold a bit of water up after the weed cut that starts next week. A perennial passage to play cricket amongst the horses and cows of the New Forest takes us over the Avon at Braemore. Last year there was flowering Ranunculus as far downstream as the eye could see. This year the river was down to its bare bones with very little weed showing.

I have a Sparsholt student with me for three weeks on a work placement, embarking on his first year of a Bsc in Fishery Management. The course is similar to the one that I completed a long time ago, although the entry requirements seem to have changed. A Level requirements are similar but there is now no longer a requirement for at least twelve months experience in the industry to gain entry onto the course. This may be because of the difficulty in finding twelve-month placements for so many students. Fewer hours are spent at college and the amount of vocational placements during the course have also been cut, along with the hours spent in college. The Course tutor, who visited last week, was present during my time at the College. The number of courses offered has risen dramatically and large numbers of students now graduate each year looking for jobs in the Fish Farming and Fishery Management field. He explained that most want to work with Carp in France or chase Cats on the Ebro, areas of work that were unheard of when I completed my course. But there seems to be a lot of students leaving college each year, chasing a diminishing number of Fishery Management jobs.

Magnificent Mayfly!

This week has seen some of the best hatches of Mayfly in recent years on this stretch of river. Nothing much doing in the morning with any fish caught falling to Olive patterns, Mayfly have started to hatch around midday and between 4pm and 7pm the air has been thick with mayflies, with some spots boiling as fish dash around to take flies from the surface. Some fish leap to snatch already airborne flies, while others have taken to the spent Mayfly and will touch nothing else. Wind was a problem for part of the week, and prevented some Mayflies from returning to the river to lay their eggs, but for the last few days there have been high numbers of Mayflies flopping down on the water to die and lay their eggs. A shower of rain led to some ditching on the shiny rain covered road, and while parking our car on our return from our weekly trip to the local food emporium several bounced up and down on the shiny bonnet to jettison their ball of eggs. Some anglers who fish other waters report that the Mayfly is almost done, here it is in full swing and nothing short of spectacular.

Our house is in turmoil at the moment, the kitchen is being "zazzed up" and my wife is busy daubing undercoat and gloss paint on any visible woodwork. At the weekend a few friends fished and several others dropped in throughout the morning, "Child A" returned, from whence we know not, with boyfriend in tow, and "Child B" had various cricketing friends turn up; subsequently a party developed. With the house upside down we opted to drink beer in the sunshine and set fire to a variety of meat products by the fishing hut. Some fished and others just chatted, but while food and drink were taken, a Blackbird held us rapt as it sang its head off, before perching on the handrail of the bridge to take brief flight and clumsily pluck hatching Mayflies from the skies; not as agile as the Wagtails or as spectacular as the Swallows and Swifts but entertaining nonetheless, some he got, some he missed, he will probably have just about got the hang of it by the end of the Mayfly.

We have had rain, but only brief showers. The grass has greened up but the river is still falling away. Some of the water celery has broken surface and it may be possible to bar cut some of the river to hold up the level. The Ranunculus looks decidedly ropey, some is turning brown and only the bits in the faster stretches of the top shallows will flower this year. Hatches of midday Olives are down on previous years and I have yet to see a Blue Winged Olive, Sedges are early with good numbers of small brown and black.

There is a lot of mowing and strimming to be done at this time of the year, and the showers of rain have caused several leaf laden branches to drop, these must be cut back where they block paths or restrict casting. The fish in the hatchery are now out on river water and doing well, around an inch and a half long they are very pale when first put onto the gravel bottom of the fry stew but within an hour they have darkened and are very difficult to spot, although the nesting kingfisher seems to have got his eye in. There are fry in the margins of the pond, a scoop through a shoal with a net revealed that they are mostly Roach and Rudd, but with the odd Bream and Tench, no Carp from what I can see.

My employer has been away this week, fishing the Carron with family and friends. They had some success, but returned a day early because of heavy rain that lifted the river by five feet! Following devolution the Scots followed their own path on many issues from university fees to prescription charges. It transpires that they also established diplomatic links with the rain gods and are investing heavily in all available precipitation, to the detriment of the Sassenachs in the southeast, they must be laughing their heads off!

Blanket weed in May!

A metrosexual tit (it’s not in any bird book) employed as a radio reporter, was dispatched by the lunchtime news programme this week to report on the dry conditions in the south east of England. He travelled to the river Itchen at Eastleigh and reported that the river was flowing, ducks were quacking, Swans were swimming, Otters were ottering and the ice cream was lovely; the river had water in and he couldn’t see what all the fuss about. Had he travelled to the headwaters of this river, he could have reported on spring ditches that are dry and a river fast disappearing before our eyes. Cracks in the ground big enough to take a hand would provide a perfect opportunity for dramatic visual reporting, much arm waving and tales laden with doom. A missed opportunity for our intrepid reporter but then we are just that little bit further away from the M3. The middle river will always feel the pinch less than the headwaters.

Out and about on fish business, much of the conversation is centred around the water level. A visit to a stretch at the very top of the Test that we have stocked for many years revealed a river down to its bare bones, gin clear and full of Brown Trout from parr to fish of a great age, it has been stocked with mixed sex Brown Trout for some years, a practice that will be forcibly discontinued in years to come. The middle river is fishing well and on a recent excursion the colour of the water seemed to be much improved on recent years, although this may be due to the reduced flows. Most report good hatches of Mayfly. On the stretch at the top of the main river that does not normally see many Mayflies I saw several spent Mayflies crash landing down on to the water.

At home the fishing has been very good. A lot of fish have been caught, predominantly between 4pm and 6pm on Mayfly patterns. Mayfly have started to hatch from late morning onwards peaking around 4pm with fish rising hard to slash at the surface fly. Biggest fish to date is four and half pounds, fin perfect and probably stocked a couple of years ago, hauled from an Irish Lough on a dapped Mayfly many would swear it was “wild” whatever “wild” means these days.
On the over-widened shallows of the ford, there are large shoals of fry, some tiny Grayling, and Trout approaching an inch long, the cry from some quarters that prolonged stocking with mixed sex Brown Trout hinders replenishment of this river’s stock does not hold here.

Lack of water is raising problems in the stew ponds, The jumbo Rainbows that we rear for the neighbouring big fish water, are always likely to get a bit “gilly” in low flows with protozoan parasites thriving in the stale conditions. Salt treatments help along with Formalin but the sign of blanket thriving in one of the ponds in mid May hints at troubled times ahead.

Mayfly time

Finally it rained, two inches over consecutive nights. A spectacular thunderstorm one night and steady rainfall the following night tainted the water and briefly lifted the level by a midge's dick, but it has since dropped down to last week’s level. It takes a lot of rain at this time of the year to affect aquifers, demand for water is high at this time of year and little is left to save in the underground piggy bank.

Fishing has been good with the Hawthorn now over and the Mayfly begun. A few fish were caught last week on small sedges and today, for the first time this year, fish were caught on Mayflies. Biggest fish so far is just over three pounds and had probably been in the river for at least a couple of seasons. Generally the fish caught have over wintered well although two lanky fish have been caught both very silver fish of around two pounds. Fish have risen when fly have been on the water, although midday Olives have been noticeable by their absence. As is the case most years early season fish have risen short or crashed the fly, both natural and artificial; occasional clumsiness that will fade as the feast of flies on the surface develops through the coming weeks.

The birds have found the Mayfly and put on an entertaining afternoon aerobatic display. Swallows and Swifts hit the rising flies at high speed while Wagtails dash from the bank to pluck them feet from the surface sometimes off a rising trout's nose. If in a later life, I have to come back in another form, please not as a Mayfly who must annually endure the invertebrate equivalent of “going over the top”

In the hedge bordering the field of wheat behind our house an English Partridge sits on eggs; the first that I have seen in this field for some time. When our chickens were at the top of the garden we once had a huge brood of English Partridge that would come and feed with Pocahontas (the children were young then and our chooks had names) and chums. The estate who own the land have put a lot of work into encouraging English Partridge on the surrounding land but to date results have been disappointing. We have seen them on our shooting days, but not for some years. The intense showers that we have seen in recent days provide a big test for young chicks of all birds bar wildfowl. This lot could do with a bit of a break and I’ve half a mind to lend them my fishing umbrella just in case. Several pheasants are sitting on eggs in the Christmas tree plantation, and surprisingly Otis the arse gives them a wide birth on our morning preamble.

Currently Fishermen are ensconced throughout the valley with numbers swelling each day. An influx of guides parade, tackle shops titivate displays, picnics are prepared and many more set themselves for a perennial boost to business provided by a fly that takes an incredible hammering from all quarters, but thankfully,keeps coming back for more.

A Baobab perhaps?

Finally people are talking about the lack of water. Thirty-five days here with little enough rain to do for the dust. An enlightened MP raised a question at PMQ’s about possible water shortages and suggested that farmers and horticulturists be given free rein to take water from rivers to make up for any short fall they may experience from depleted reservoirs and ground water supplies. I don’t think such action would affect this stretch of river too much, but in some parts off the country it could have a major affect on discharge. The source of the Thames is already dry above Lechlade and perhaps the MP wasn’t required to study the water cycle at school; rivers require rain for their flow; the water doesn’t just keep on coming! The quest for alternative sources of energy is carried out with incredible zeal. Anything from solar panels on every roof (we have several phone offers a week, even one to site a panel on the car roof if we park it in the right place) to growing Hamsters with thighs of thunder that could turn a wheel really fast. The provision of water needs to be given an equal footing. We cannot keep pulling more and more water out of the ground and out of our rivers as the population increases, look to store rain that falls or desalinate sea water and return the waste efficiently from whence it came, as they do in countries with far harsher climates than this.

The fishing here has been steady, with every fish so far caught on a Hawthorn mostly in the middle of the day. As is often the case early in the season, fish can rise clumsily as they adjust to a food source on the surface and several miss the fly, both natural and artificial. The fish in the river have over wintered well and there is no sign off any fish with fungus on their noses as can be the case early some seasons. The Roach look to have spawned, as have the Carp in the pond, although some of the tree roots on which they have laid their eggs in previous years are out of the water. Marsh Marigolds are out along with pungent Ramsens, accompanied by brown patches of grass rather than the usual verdant sward. The last dry summer we had, several trees shed leaf early. The Horse Chestnuts are currently as good as they get, covered in candles and dark green leaves, but in a month brown patches will appear as the annual virus puts in its appearance. Climate change gurus would suggest that the South is getting more Mediterranean and that we should be turning to Olives and Grapes, but the Olive Tree we have here looks to be struggling, maybe Baobabs are the answer.

We have Swallows and after last year’s “no show” some Martins, still no Swifts although they have been bombing around the cricket ground a mile away for a few weeks. Plenty of Ducks, with several nesting, but where are they all going in the winter? Not to our pond judging by recent years' flighting. Half way up the river a Water Rail sits on eggs on the quiet far bank, half a dozen spotted cream mini eggs, and a Kingfisher is busy in the bank on the top shallows. No Otters at the moment, the fear of Richard Madeley continues with his two week stint on the breakfast show over Easter continuing to strike fear into the local Otter population.